Congress MLAs walk out as BJP govt evades queries on cut-off dates in Assam Accord, CAA

In a written reply, the Assam Accord Implementation Department submitted that the department had not changed the date. Clause 5 of the Assam Accord lays down the midnight of March 24, 1971, as the cut-off date for the detection and deletion of “foreigners”.

During Question Hour, Saikia supplemented this with questions to Atul Bora, the minister for implementation of the Assam Accord. “In the case of the Citizenship Amendment Act of 2019, except for one community, it seeks to make all those who came to the state till December 31,2015, Indian citizens. So there will definitely be some conflict between these two. So how will this be addressed?” he said.

However, Bora’s response evaded the question. “The Assam Accord came after a long movement and we all know that then Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi was a signatory. Then the government in Delhi was a Congress one, in Dispur also there was a Congress government. The main obstacle to the implementation of the accord was the IMDT Act [Illegal Migrants (Determination by Tribunals) Act]. Still we think that the Congress could have implemented it at that time and removed doubts from people’s minds. I think it’s appropriate that the questions the MLA has asked be raised to his own conscience, and that he ask this question to the Rajiv Bhawan sitting in Delhi…” he said before Opposition MLAs started shouting in protest.

Congress MLA Jakir Hussain Sikdar also questioned the government’s stand on the cut-off date for identifying “foreigners”. Referring to the case in the Supreme Court in which there is a plea that 1951 be established as the cut-off year for inclusion in the National Register of Citizens instead of 1971, Sikdar asked what submissions the government had made in the matter and what date it was in favour of.

In response, Bora stated, “The 2019 CAA has been passed by the central government, so this is not a matter of the state government and cannot give opinions on this.”

Sikdar questioned the minister further, asking, “It is clear what the Assam Accord says. How can the Assam government have two positions? Do they honour the Assam Accord or not? If they do, they have to implement all clauses of it…”

“When the Congress talks about Accord, foreigners, implementation, I feel like it is saying ram nam for votes,” Bora said. The Congress MLAs walked out of the Assembly afterwards.

Even as the rules of the 2019 Act are still being framed by the Union home ministry, Opposition MLAs claim that the apparent contradictions between the Act and the Assam Accord—around which questions of citizenship, “illegal immigrants” and rights of “indigenous Assamese” citizens have revolved for decades—have still not been addressed by the BJP led-government in the border state.

“We have been trying to ask these questions for four years but they are always evasive and never answer and try to push it off as a central matter. The CAA is applicable all over the country except for sixth-schedule areas, but because of the Assam Accord, Assam should be excluded from it. We have asked the central government to settle those it seeks to make citizens elsewhere, not in Assam because it will hurt sentiments and violate the Accord…” Saikia told The Indian Express. “They are hoodwinking because this is politically advantageous to them. Outside Assam, they want to give a picture of Hindu unity and in Assam, they say that the Assam Accord will be honoured.”

Minister Atul Bora did not respond to calls and messages seeking comment.